Overwhelmed by God

For years, I’ve told people that I’m a champion worrier. I can take a seemingly innocuous situation and come up with reasons to be concern. This morning, for example, I walked into a kitchen full of ants enjoying the remnants of one of my dog’s dinner. Not only is this disgusting, but for worry-warts like me, it makes my question whether or not I’m a good keeper of my family’s house, whether I’m a good pet parent, and about a thousand other concerns that have absolutely nothing to do with the ants’ march into my kitchen. To see my worrying in its finest, is really a sight to behold – and not a good one as my husband can attest.

A few years ago it was impressed upon me that despite my natural ability to earn a gold medal in worrying, it really wasn’t a godly characteristic in my life. While I was quite willing to trust in God for salvation, I wasn’t doing such a good job of trusting Him with life’s little mishaps. So began a process of learning to turn things over to Him – and of knowing that they were in His hands from the beginning anyway.

Recently, though, I’ve learned it’s not just about giving things over to God, however, it’s about taking all He has to offer instead. For, as John Montgomery from California Baptist University recently said, I should “be overwhelmed by God instead of being overwhelmed by life.” God not only takes our burdens upon Him but he offers His grace, mercy and love in exchange. When we are engaged in all that God is, our problems not only seem small in comparison, but they are overshadowed by the magnitude of Him. We are amazed by His mercy, in wonder of His grace, and overcome by His love. When all we see is Him, we cease to focus on our concerns.

The truth is this is not easy, but it’s not because of any insufficiency on His part. It’s because we choose to focus on other things. However, the more we choose His bigness over our smallness, the closer our perspective is to being aligned with His. And the more we do this, the more He consumes our life, and the more others can see just how overwhelming God is.